U.S. Ambassador to the Phillippines MaryKay Carlson and ambassadors of the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan voiced their concerns on X over Beijing’s escalations in the South China Sea.
In a statement, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the United States stands with the Philippines and condemns the "dangerous and escalatory actions by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) against lawful Philippine maritime operations in the vicinity of Sabina Shoal in the South China Sea" on Aug. 31.
Manila stated that the Chinese Coast Guard vessel "deliberately rammed and collided with the BRP Teresa Magbanua three times, despite no provocation from the Philippine Coast Guard," and corroborated its assertion with three videos on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that appear to show moments before and during each collision.
The latest skirmish between the Chinese regime and the Philippines occurred near the Sabina Shoal, which China refers to as the Xianbin Jiao (Xianbin Reef) and the Filipinos call the Escoda Shoal.It’s part of the disputed Spratly Islands over which both Beijing and Manila claim sovereignty.
According to the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), up to 200 nautical miles off the coast of a nation counts as its exclusive economic zone, and the Sabina Shoal—which is much closer to the Philippines than it is to China—falls within the Philippines’s exclusive economic zone.
A 2016 Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling in The Hague also found that the Chinese regime had no legal basis for its territorial claims over the South China Sea. Beijing stated that the court doesn’t have the power to rule on territorial disputes and passed a domestic law that it claims allows its coast guard to detain foreigners it views as trespassers while ramping up aggression in the area.
It’s the fourth sea incident and the third collision incident in a month over which Beijing and Manila publicly traded accusations. The Inclusion of air incidents makes it the seventh skirmish.
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